Michigan State coach Tom Izzo is a proponent of seeing a shorter shot clock in men’s college basketball, and he believes that the appetite is there for a change, he told Oklahoma City radio station WWLS on Monday.

Izzo, in OKC to accept the Wayman Tisdale Humanitarian Award earlier this week, said he just doesn’t like the pace of the game.

Tom Izzo's Michigan State Spartans have made the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16 in five of the past six seasons. (AP Photo)

"One of the guys I have great respect for—Johnny Dawkins, who is at Stanford—and we were in our meetings the other day, and he said, 'We have the slowest game in the world.'

"The international is less. The pro is less. The women's is less. And here we are with 35 (seconds)."

Men’s college basketball has operated with the 35-second clock since 1993-94, when it shrank from a 45-second clock that was implemented eight years earlier. Before then, there was no shot clock, and stall tactics were common. The graybeards among us surely can remember the Four Corners offense at North Carolina under Dean Smith.

Izzo said the shot clock was discussed recently at the National Association of Basketball Coaches meetings in Atlanta. Izzo is serving on the board of directors this season, and he is a past president of the NABC (2010-11).

“You know the bureaucracy of committees and what it's got to do, but I think there is getting a growing run at maybe doing that, and I think more coaches are in favor of it," Izzo told the radio station.

Women’s college basketball has a 30-second clock, and the NBA and FIBA operate on a 24-second clock.

As people look for faster, more entertaining play, speeding up shots taken would help in that effort. And perhaps it could cut down on some of the physical play that has become part of college basketball today.